'Strategic objectives not achieved': Has Ukraine's counteroffensive failed?

Kyiv, Ukraine – Referring to the Soviet puzzle video game, Alla says her husband kills Russian soldiers as though he is playing "human Tetris". "A drone hangs in the sky, and he watches [them] crawl across the forest," she told Al Jazeera. And then they crawl again." The war in Ukraine has turned Avdiivka, where Alla's husband is stationed, into a maze of ruins, trenches and tunnels surrounded by burned-down fields and patches of forest studded with landmines, explosion craters and remnants of Russian soldiers and armoured vehicles. Avdiivka sits 20km (12 miles) north of separatist Donetsk, wedged deep into occupied areas.